Relative Something

It arrived with a vengeance yesterday. It is our turn to cope with Earth’s new reality of oppressive heat waves. Tropical dew point temperatures push the high heat to feel ten degrees hotter and land us well into three-digit heat index numbers.

As with every weather extreme, the horses just seem to roll with it. We left fans on high under the overhang and they didn’t expend any more effort than necessary all day long.

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Wearing masks to give their eyes a break from the never-ending harassment from flies, they stayed in the shade where the attack of solar energy was ameliorated by a degree or two. Well, except for Mia. When we showed up to serve their evening feeding, she was out grazing in the back pasture all by herself.

Cyndie decided to walk down and offer Mia a pan in the shade which she promptly accepted. It was uncomfortably hot but not intolerable with pockets of cooler air wafting out from under the shade trees on an occasional breeze.

Asher came out with us and pounced into the woods to force squirrels into hasty retreats to the highest branches above. When horses were tended to, Asher was more than happy to return with us to lie on the cool tile floor of our air-conditioned living space.

I took advantage of avoiding outdoor work by giving in to a delicious afternoon nap in the recliner. What a privileged life we live.

I shudder to comprehend how people in places where this kind of heat lasts for months deal with nights that don’t get cool. We went down to the barn just before sunset to close things up, turn off the fans, and remove fly masks but the heat had barely budged from the peak in the afternoon.

Light was sweating, which wasn’t visible when we fed them earlier. The heat of the day was still accumulating.

Our turn dealing with the blast furnace of this over-heating planet will be mercifully short. After today things will moderate a bit and by Saturday the forecast looks almost chilly in comparison.

The horses give me a sense that they understand this and use that superpower to bolster their impressive art of coping when conditions are just plain miserable.

Our retreat to the geothermally cooled house is a less impressive method of coping, but it is oh. so. effective.

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